Nikita ignores that. “My father was a businessman in St Petersburg. I lived there until I was seven years old. After my mother passed away, he moved us here, to America. As soon as we landed, my father got to work. He made contacts. At the time, there was only a small Russian community and it was mostly controlled by one significant name.”
She nods. “His business suffered on its own. It took the help of the Vorobevs to give him a leg up. But that partnership cemented a friendship between my father and Vitaly’s.”
“Oh. So it was an arranged marriage sort of situation?”
“In a way,” she answers. “We were thrown together in the hopes that something would materialize. The first night we met properly was at Yakov’s wedding.”
She nods again. “I watched the splendor of that marriage. I watched
